


The Thirteenth Hour

by GeometryOfTime



Series: The Figure Five in Gold [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Five is 16 in this, Five is straight up not having a good time in this, For the most part, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Pseudo-Incest, Time Travel, Timey-Wimey, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:07:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26446090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeometryOfTime/pseuds/GeometryOfTime
Summary: It’s been three years since his last apocalypse.He’s been through three apocalypses, he’s seen his siblings die more times than he cares to remember. Maybe that’s why it was so hard to accept; every other time he’s seen their dying bodies it was just a temporary setback so of course this time would be the same again.Wouldn’t it? It had to be.But Five doesn’t have his powers anymore.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Diego Hargreeves
Series: The Figure Five in Gold [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1926487
Comments: 9
Kudos: 70





	The Thirteenth Hour

It’s been three years since his last apocalypse. 

He’s tired. He’s never not been tired, so it shouldn’t even be a legitimate complaint, but he was. Bone-tired, wringed out, mentally exhausted. But, like every day since he’s become consciously aware of what was happening to him, he made the decision to push through. Make it through the day; just that day, just until that one last sleep of one day and right into the first awakening on a new day. Then do it again. And again. 

Despite the way exhaustion works its way through his body, seeping to settle heavy in his limbs, he knows he still has it in him to drive for a few more hours, maybe even until sunrise. The tortured half-sleeps he got during the post-apocalypse irrevocably changed his body’s need for that kind of rest, and by now he was fluent in how far he could stretch this new body of his. 

The road is empty, as he expected, the darkness disturbed from time to time by errant trees or skeletal power lines. Five only knows where they’re going, not what they’ll do once they eventually get there; there are far too many moving parts for him to be able to think too many steps ahead. He hates it; he hates being so neutered, so suddenly. First his body, then the rest of him. What is he but a brain inside a useless box? He went for long stretches during the desolate years without even using his powers. He even took it as penance for a while, but after a while it just- it didn’t help. It didn’t do anything. 

But he had it. He still had all of himself, body and powers.

Now-

Diego startles with a snore, then settles back in his seat, head resting against the bunched-up jacket in the window. Five looks at his abdomen, where his hand cradles the place where he knows a wound is still a ways away from being healed. The stitches were doing the best they could, Five is happy he had the time to be as meticulous as he had to be. That was one deep wound, and even with antibiotics - he would have _killed_ for antibiotics after the first few decades in the post-apocalypse - it could still go either way. 

He’s gotten really good at sewing, back then. He had to. 

But he pulled through. Day after day, until things Changed, until he went back. He went back and forth through time for a while; but he was making it through, day after day. Many others weren’t so lucky, some by his own hand. Five’s torn between ‘it doesn’t matter’ and ‘it matters a great deal’, but in the end the truth was they all were a means to an end. And if it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else. 

Some things that had to happen, happened.

Sometimes, things that had to happen, didn’t - but that was time. That was his life.

_Was._

Ever since Thirteen got the first of them - killed, he _killed_ Allison; he killed them all - time stopped working for Five. 

He’s gone through all of Reginald’s research, he’s interviewed Pogo and gone through Grace’s algorithm to see if there was any way to unlock all the information she surely must have had. Still, he didn’t manage to come any closer to finding out what they were. Not who, that was irrelevant. _What._

It wasn’t something supernatural that sprung 43 freaks into existence via unknowing, unwilling surrogates; it was technology. Alien, or future. And as such, it had to have a purpose.

To stop the apocalypse, Reginald always said. To save the world.

But what intelligent beings would create such freaks that some of their powers are so dangerous to others’? 

Thirteen was a killer, first and foremost.

Not that Five had any moral leg to stand on, he wasn’t even considering that. But it was important to be known. Psychopathy and murderous thirst first, superpowers later.

Allison fell first - was killed, she _was killed_ first - then it was Luther and Klaus. Vanya died last, a rage-filled, dignified death, devoid of her powers as had they all been. She fought harder than anyone would have thought her capable of, harder than her short training afforded her any right to be. 

But she died. They all did. 

There’s only him and Diego now. 

Only Diego, blood still drying on his bandages, and Five’s powerless mind inside a teenager’s body. 

He wasn’t going to let Thirteen win, though.

He’s been through three apocalypses, he’s seen his siblings die more times than he cares to remember. Maybe that’s why it was so hard to accept; every other time he’s seen their dying bodies it was just a temporary setback so of course this time would be the same again.

Wouldn’t it? It had to be.

But Five doesn’t have his powers anymore. 

It doesn’t matter. Five squints at the headlights approaching from the opposite direction, his breath coming harder now. But the car comes and goes, and no matter how much Five looks in the rear view mirror, it doesn’t turn to follow them. They are safe. 

For now. 

They just have to get to a safe place, then he’d have to think for a while. His brain was his best asset after all, his brain was what kept him alive all this time. His brain would get them out of this too. 

He’d just have to make it through until that last sleep of the day, and sunrise was fast approaching. 

Five chooses to not wake Diego and instead takes a dirt road, parking far from the main road. Just as he settles against the headrest, Diego stirs and wakes with a gasp and a groan, turning to him.

“Where are we?”

“A couple of hours away from the safehouse. I thought you’d be asleep for a while longer. How are you?”

Diego pulls at his shirt, exposing the red-stained bandages below. He looks like he wants to touch, but then changes his mind, pulling the fabric down.

“Well, it doesn’t hurt enough that I want to puke, but I still wouldn’t consider any strenuous activity just yet.”

“Can you drive?”

Five knows Diego probably shouldn’t even consider driving now, but they hardly have any other choice. The sooner they got out of the open, the better. 

“Yeah, I’m good. I just need to go out for a piss, maybe have something to eat and I’m good to go.”

“Need any help?”

“What, you gonna hold my dick?”

Five scoffs.

“Is that really necessary? You have a pretty nasty wound. I wasn’t trying to be a dick, please don’t be one either.”

“I’m sorry, I’m just-” 

Yeah, Five knows. Diego unbuckles his seat belt, wincing as he turns to toss his jacket on the dashboard. He opens the door, but stops before going out.

“This is really fucked. Are you sure-”

“Yeah. Nothing. I still can’t teleport, can’t time travel. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that his powers definitely don’t have a range of action, but mine definitely still don’t work.”

Five has no idea if they ever would, again. They had this theory, Diego and him, that there was a chance that Thirteen’s powers would have a certain range of action that they could possibly escape. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, maybe it was baseless hope - either way, Five never stops trying. 

Five never stops trying.

Diego and him never really talked about their siblings’ deaths. They had both been there for most of them, some - Klaus’, for example - they’ve seen on live television. What a world. What a spectacle.

Thirteen was clever. 

A clever, murderous sociopath with a tooth to pick, with a personal mission to ‘protect the world from the superpowered threat’. He’d gotten the public opinion on his side and wasn’t that troubling, how the world at large basically accepted murder to protect themselves from some perceived threat. Murder, some of it televised, that was lauded, hailed as good. 

They aren’t on the run only from Thirteen, they are on the run from everybody.

Diego gets out of the car, holding on to the door with white knuckles that speak of how much of his pain he is actually hiding, then goes to relieve himself in the nearby bushes. He limps back, and for a second, as he turns, Five sees that absolute horror in his eyes again. With a sigh, it’s gone, replaced by Diego’s stern, resolute look. He comes back to the driver’s side of the car, and Five unbuckles. 

“I don’t need more than three hours, four tops. You have the address, right?”

“Yeah.” 

“You sure you’re up to this? I can have a short nap and we can get back on the road and to the house before ten AM.”

“I’m good. Sleep. I’ll wake you when you get to the safehouse.”

Sleep comes in minutes, before Diego even pulls onto the main road. For the briefest seconds as he drifts off surrounded by the smell permeating Diego’s jacket where it was pressed under his cheek against the window, Five feels safe.

The safehouse is small - not that it matters - and fully stocked for their brief stay. One day only, then come nightfall, they’ll change cars and drive to the next safe house. It isn’t as seamless as Five would have liked it, but it would have to do. Of course Thirteen could find them, he probably will, but hopefully until they will have formulated a plan, maybe even one that actually works. 

“Think Herb is okay?”

Diego’s not okay. He is not okay and Five doesn’t know how to fix him. All he’s ever fought for was to save his siblings, and he did, several times even - but that danger was always external, he didn’t know how to approach this particular type of harm. They should probably talk about what happened but- He wasn’t ready to process that either. So, until them, the pain festers.

Five shrugs. “No way of knowing. I hope so, I was starting to really like the guy. Not to mention, the things I could do if I had a briefcase…” 

“Why doesn’t he use his briefcase to go back and kill the fucker when he was a baby or something?”

Fair question, one that Five has asked himself too. 

“I’m sure he has a reason - least of which being, Herb’s an analyst. He’s not a killer. Not everybody is. Also, who knows? He might have already done it. It wouldn’t affect us, stuck in this timeline as we are, so we wouldn’t even know if he did it. Unless we’re also traveling back with him, we’re unaffected by whatever changes he might do in the past.”

“Shit.”

“Yes. Time travel’s… finicky.”

Not much else to say. 

“Let me look at that,” Five points at Diego’s hand, where it lays gently over his abdomen, “then we get something to eat and a proper sleep in a proper bed. We leave at nightfall so we can squeeze in some good eight hours.”

It’s dark when they cautiously pile all the supplies in the back of the battered pickup truck, the small cache of files that Herb had left for them under the floorboards piled onto the backseat. Five really hoped that Herb was fine, but they had no way of contacting him, so for the time being they were all alone. 

The Commission had fallen.

It wasn’t difficult to dismantle after the irreparable damage they caused with their little stunt in the 60s. Only a handful of briefcases remained after Thirteen blew up the Commission HQ, and Herb had one, but Herb was in the wind - hopefully still alive. 

Everything was wrong. the Commission had fallen, the Sparrow Academy had fallen, as had the Umbrella Academy - what was left of it, anyway. So much senseless death, so much violence and chaos, all reaped by one man. Five had never been more right when he said that everyone mattered.

They got to the new safehouse in the dead of night, Diego was asleep and Five hesitated before waking him and helping him to the bed. That was it. Nothing to do further but to plan - and to survive.

The files left for them by Herb did bridge some gaps in their knowledge of Thirteen, but Five kept feeling like he was missing something, one small detail that didn't quite stand out, not consciously at least, but one that Five knew to be deeply relevant. Something that the files didn’t mention, but could be read between the lines.

Five couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. 

He spent his days lost in calculations, making notes on the edges of the files from the Commission, all while Diego mostly slept, slowly but surely getting better. He was starting to move around more, though he still didn’t talk much. He engaged Five in conversation well enough, running ideas with him, but no one felt able to mention what was hanging heavy on the both of them.

Funny how they could talk murder so detachedly, but talking feelings felt like a dirty taboo. 

“Anything on the radio?”

Diego placed the small radio back on the table, still looking at the map pinned on the wall. That thing felt so out of place in the room, all other walls filled by photos of a family they didn’t know, smiling and laughing and _gone._ Five wondered whether the map was left there by the family or whether it was left there by Herb, in a way to communicate something. But there was nothing out of the ordinary about the thing, no hidden messages, no marks. Both Diego and himself found themselves simply staring at it, at times. 

A map of everything, a map to nowhere in particular. 

Diego turns to him, leaning back against the table. 

“It seems that Thirteen is still in New York, but there’s no telling where his goons might be.” 

Thirteen’s army; they’re the ones that killed Lila. They managed to stab Diego. Five wasn’t sure how they found them, but they barely made it out alive. Somehow, Thirteen didn’t seem to realise that even without his powers, Diego was still lethal with his knives and he was certainly taken unaware when most of his security team was dismantled in seconds. He ran away before Five managed to get to him, right as Diego got stabbed by the last remaining guard.

Five sets his notebook down, looking through Diego for a few long seconds. That thing, whatever it was, the little detail was something that should have been obvious, and yet he couldn’t quite grasp it.

“Did we ever get to hurt Thirteen? In any way?”

Diego thinks. “I don’t think so. Why?”

“What if his powers only work when he’s conscious? Maybe that’s why he’s always so heavily guarded.”

"But wouldn’t that mean we get our powers when he’s asleep?”

“Well, sleep isn’t really unconsciousness, but you might have a point. I’m right though, aren’t I? He’s never even gotten all that close to us, has he?”

“Right, the only time-” Diego stops, taking a deep breath. “Klaus. But that was completely different, Klaus was in no position to defend himself.”

_That-_

“Worth keeping in mind, though.”

And they abandon the subject before the floodgates break open.

  
  


Five lays on the narrow bed, knowing that he should sleep but unable to make himself do so. He’s lost again, brain split in different tangents, and he catches himself as he lifts one finger, almost opening his mouth. Dolores always told him to explain a problem out loud because his brain often hears things that his mind might overlook, and he almost did it again.

Dolores. They didn’t really understand Dolores; none of them did. And they tried. His siblings- 

Five feels a pull at his chest and he turns to his side, looking at Diego. He can see the swell of his cheekbones, the flash of that white scar, the rise and fall of his chest. He doesn’t sleep either, eyes fixed on the ceiling, and Five knows he’s thinking of them too. 

Five has missed his siblings to the point of obsession; for decades he’s made saving them into his white whale, his singular focus, his immovable drive. And he’s saved them, again and again. This time though, it felt different.

Thirteen was his own apocalypse.

Maybe, if he was really, really lucky, he’d save everyone from this one as well.

“I miss them.”

It came out too casual for the weight it had hanging in his chest, for the absolute powerlessness and devastation he felt at losing them yet again.

Diego turns his face away, and all that Five can see is the roll of his throat as he swallows and lets out a shuddering sigh.

“I can’t get the images out of my head. Klaus-”

Klaus was captured one night when he snuck out, no doubt to get drugs. His relapse shocked no one, and even though this time everyone - everyone that was left - was doing their best to stand by him, he cracked. Allison was dead, and so was Luther; and Klaus, though finally free of his ghosts, was unable to cope with the loss of his siblings; not when he was still grieving Ben. 

Thirteen made a right spectacle of killing Klaus in a clearly staged televised scene in an alley. Behold everyone, he seemed to say, behold the ghost summoner, the cult leader and known liar; how he kills for his fix in a dirty alley. A drugged-up murderer who, even without his powers, will kill to get what he wants, even if what he wants is drugs. Such deviants have to be stopped, the world protected, cleansed of their threat.

Klaus wouldn’t kill for his fix. His siblings knew it, but nobody else did. 

The images cut long after Klaus stopped breathing, in a pornographic display of violence that left all his remaining siblings broken for months. 

When Thirteen and his army then cornered them in that warehouse, Five had to physically restrain Diego from jumping out and dragging Vanya’s body out of the open. But they were outnumbered. Vanya was dead. They had seconds to escape, and without either of their powers, every one of them mattered. They ran away, like cowards.

Hopeful cowards, since neither of them gave up on trying to go back in time and fix things. 

Seeing Vanya - little Vanya, fierce Vanya - mighty even without her powers, seeing her get gunned down, shot in the back by that murderous shit; Five barely held in the scream that almost gave away their position. 

And then there were two.

The two of them, Five and Diego, on the run. 

Five and Diego, laying on yet another bed, in yet another safehouse.

He can’t pinpoint when this thing with Diego started. It developed slowly, almost organically, after they returned from 1963, growing deeper, more complex as time passed. Since back when time meant something, before Thirteen took all their powers in a surprising little display that effectively neutered both the Sparrows and the Umbrella Academy. 

So he can’t remember how it happened with him and Diego; it wasn’t one thing that caused it, a single moment, something identifiable. What he does remember is the realisation he had one morning, one of the mornings when he woke up in his arms, when he understood with the first waking breath of the day that he was in love with Diego. He’s been so caught up in everything that was going on that he didn’t even see it coming. 

Five didn’t think he’d experience that again, not after everything and how much it took from him. 

It was a different kind of love than the one he had for Dolores. He didn’t have the language to set it out in neat little words, it wasn’t numbers so he could parse them and maybe begin to understand. He loved him, just as he’d loved Dolores - yet differently - and it surprised him to realise that love could take on many faces even within the same heart. 

But he’d left Dolores and all that she meant behind, in another timeline even. He’s said his goodbyes in his symbolic attempt to leave his Apocalypse years behind. His past self. His _old_ self. 

Five understood that morning that he couldn’t do that, that Dolores would always be a part of him, a part of his life. 

With Dolores, Five learned to understand love. What he struggled with was lust - or rather, his hormones. But that’s all it all was, puberty and a storm of hormones that really made his first years in the wasteland unnecessarily uncomfortable. He’s pushed through, eventually. When that haze was lifted, all that was left was love. Support. His version of sanity.

He was not prepared for Diego, for how he was. For who he had become. Diego didn’t push, he never took any more than Five was willing to give.

And Five, he was never ready to give much. 

Diego runs his knuckles over his eyes, turning to watch Five, his hand coming to capture Five’s between them. 

It’s mad. It’s not fair. Not just how he’s unable to give Diego what he surely wants, what he surely must need. It’s not that, it’s just- Diego’s hand. His touch; warm. Fingers curling around his own. 

_Diego’s alive._

Five can’t erase from his mind that afternoon, in the grey, fiery haze of the after-world, when he buried them all. He dug his siblings from under the rubble with his bare hands, brick by brick until his skin tore and bled and the soot on his face was sliced by the muted streaks of tears. 

Minutes before, they were all having breakfast. They were alive. Even as he lined them all out on the street outside the house, his mind struggling to reconcile their grown-up bodies to the fresh images of them as kids, Five could not accept that they were dead. 

That night, he dug four graves. The next morning, he buried them. 

It swells inside him, making him curl around his middle as if trying to contain it; this fury, this unprovoked surge of adrenaline that’s threatening to overspill. When it becomes too much, he feels himself pulled to sit up, taking a deep breath then straddling Diego. There’s a surprised, pained gasp, and Diego’s hands instantly land on his thighs - to stop or steady, Five can’t be sure - his touch shocking right through Five’s skin, making him squeeze his eyes in response. 

He looks down at Diego, at the grimace of pain that’s twisting into a curious little tilt of the head, and Five gets instantly overwhelmed. Diego’s warm under his thighs, his chest rising and falling under his palms where they’re laid, the tump-thump-thump of his heartbeat a constant reminder to Five that they’re alive. 

_They’re alive._ He’s alive, he’s too alive and he doesn’t even know what it means anymore. He leans down, careful not to touch Diego’s bandages, and he looks into his eyes, hoping to make himself understood beyond the shape of the words leaving his mouth. 

“Kiss me.”

“Five.”

His voice is soft and pleading, but he doesn’t say no. He doesn’t stop Five when he crashes into him, teeth bumping for a second until they find their rhythm, and Five takes over, ripping the veneer of sweetness that Diego tried to put into the kiss, going deep, going dirty. His hands move to Diego’s belt, trying to unbuckle it, lips still sealed to Diego’s, tongue licking into his mouth hungrily. 

When Diego touches his hands, trying to get him to stop, Five bats his hand away and continues pulling the leather strap through the loop.

“No.” Five gasps, shaking his head. “I want to. Please.”

“Five. Stop it. You’re not- Stop!” He grabs Five’s wrist, squeezing tightly until the pain burns, sharply bringing him back to himself. He lets go of the buckle, but doesn’t stop fixing Diego with fiery eyes.

“I want to.” He does. He wants, he _needs_ to get lost. To forget. For a little while, he needs to feel like maybe his world is filled with something other than death, rage and powerlessness. He needs to change things, to prove to himself that he has some agency over his own life, still. 

“I know you think you do, but.” He finally releases Five’s hand, cupping his face in hands far gentler than the touch he’s just pressed on Five’s wrist. “Not like this. You’re not thinking right, you--”

“But I _want_ this.” He does, he’s absolutely sure. 

Then again, this body, his teenage body; it wanted this all the time, the first time around as well as now.

“Not like this,” Diego repeated. “Trust me. It won’t make you feel any better. Not about- not about what’s really bothering you.”

It takes Five a few seconds to move, to sit on the side of the bed. He wants to leave. Once again, he feels that itch overtaking him, the need to run away, to run and to never stop.

“Hey.” Diego catches his hand just as he starts to get up, and he instantly stills, settling back down. That was the power of his touch, the unspoken magic. “I love you, you know that, right? And this- if you still want this, we’ll do it. Just, not now.”

Diego spoke his mind. Secretly, Five thinks that’s the reason he was Number Two, because he spoke up, he challenged - and while that was generally regarded as a desirable feature, it wasn’t accepted when it was directed towards Reginald. Luther was so set on being Dad’s pet, so keen to obey; of course he became Number One. Not that it mattered in the end. 

Five never accepted a name. He rejected it outright, in his own thinly veiled act of rebellion - if Dad saw them as numbers, then he’ll be a number. He didn’t need a name if all that he was supposed to be was a tunable machine. He never spoke up quite as often as he should have, and perhaps not in the right wats when he did; but he did speak his mind. He was still surprised when Diego did too, and about this, of all things.

Hearing those words spoken out loud felt as unreal as when they existed only in his head, and Five almost laughed. His life had been such a varied range of fucked-up. He’s not experienced normalcy, not _once_ in his sixty-odd years of life. Those words felt like they did not belong in his world, and then Diego had said them, and they _fit._

He was old. He knew better than to fight it. There was even an undercurrent of excitement at the whole idea; it was there, still, after all that time. He was still thrilled at the idea that he could experience all of that; _him_. After everything he’s been through. After all he’s still going through. 

He leans into Diego’s touch, getting pulled closer, their eyes meeting again.

All things considered, it was pretty fucked up. But so was his thing with Dolores, and that was all basically in his head. This was real. 

It was still fucked up, twisted and quite possibly wrong, but- He’s been through life. It feels like he’s had several lives - the Academy, the post-apocalypse years, his time with the Commission, his fight to prevent recurring Apocalypses. And time and time again, Five learned that nothing really meant anything, because in the end, everyone dies. Life was such a relative thing. Time travel, timelines, apocalypses. His siblings have already died; they all have, and not just once. Those siblings, the one buried under the rubble - just as much his siblings as all the others - they were still dead. They stopped existing, and the universe didn’t give a shit. 

It matters to Five, though. It’s the only thing that really mattered to him. 

Diego was changed too. He’d grown, just like they all did, shaped by his own scars, lugging around his own spectrum of pain. None of them knew how to talk about it though, except in brief bursts of vulnerability that spiled quickly before putting the stopper back in.

But Diego was there, and he was trying. Five felt suddenly small.

“I thought you wanted to.”

“I did. I _do._ But I don’t need it. And this isn’t how it’s going to happen, if you _really_ want it.”

Diego’s right. He doesn’t like it. It makes sense but it still hurts, it still leaves him restless and a little bit empty inside, and he knows it’s deeper than the apparent rejection. 

“Come back to bed; let’s try to actually get some sleep. We need that brain of yours in tip-top shape if we want to fix this.”

Breakfast. Coffee. Diego tried working out, but of course his wound did not agree with his plans. They sat across the table from each other, going through the same files again.

“We can’t do this forever.” Diego’s stating the obvious. “We’ll have to strike before he does.”

“Obviously.”

“Obviously.” Diego half sneers. They’re getting cabin fever, all locked up, still cornered. 

“We need to find a way to get Thirteen alone someplace.”

“And then what?”

“And then we kill him, obviously.”

“Obviously.” Repeats Diego, and Five really wishes he could blink away. “Who do we have left that’s both on our side, and alive?”

“In this timeline? No one, really.”

“Fuck.”

“Are you absolutely sure there’s no way to contact any of the old Resistance members at the Commission?”

“None that I can think of. If anyone’s left, all we can hope for is that they reach out to us, but we can’t sit around and wait for that to happen.”

“Right. Well, if we control the location, we have the upper hand. I can take out at least a dozen of his crew, easy. Now the thing is to draw him exactly where we want him.”

“Not this house; there’s just too many variables. Not to mention, we can’t stay here much longer, it’s a miracle he hasn’t found us yet.”

“That we know of.”

“Yeah well I don’t think he’d hesitate much if he found us.”

“Unless he wants to make a spectacle of us, too.”

"True.”

Five sets his coffee mug down, rotating it as he thinks. He doesn’t want to think about it, still, but the words spill out of his mouth nonetheless, and he doesn’t fight them.

“I’ve seen you all die so many times. Even with the Sparrows; I could just unwind time and fix things. But I’ve seen you all die so, _so_ many times. It never gets easier.” He catches Diego’s eyes before he has time to look away. “But this is the first time for you. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”

“Can’t you?”

And yeah, valid point. Somewhat. 

“It’s different for me. I only got thirteen years before I ran away. You got a full thirty three.”

“You know we all scattered after Ben died.”

“It’s not the same, still.”

Diego sighs, getting smaller with the curl of his shoulders. 

“Back in the sixties, I refused to even think that you may have died. I told myself, over and over, that we just haven’t found each other. I can’t even imagine what it was like for you when you found us dead. The knowledge, it-”

It broke him. He refused to accept it too, even though he’d seen them. He’d buried them.

Not a good conversation.

“We’ll fix this; we have to. We have before, and we will again. I will _not_ let that pompous shit win.”

Diego smiles, weakly, and he picks up a random file and starts looking through it. The time for vulnerability was over.

“Okay, let’s go through it once more. What do we know about Thirteen?”

xiii

On October 1st 1989, in a small town in the mountains of Romania, a baby boy was born to an unwed young woman who had not been pregnant at the start of the day. The very next day, the baby ended up on the steps of one of the orphanages that was well-hidden from the public eye, where it was taken in and treated just like all of the other unwanted children of the era - which is to say, he was in for a lonely, rough start.

The chaos that came just two months later, at the tail end of a snowless December, was the best thing that happened to the boy because with the fall of metaphorical walls, came the revealing of the many orphanages that kept the hidden, unwanted children born of a brutal, misguided demographic policy. Then came the adoptions, and Ciprian - named by the nurses after the saint in the calendar on the day he was found on their doorstep - was eventually taken in by a nice, unsuspecting family from the States.

Ciprian was a completely regular child, of average build and average intelligence, average accomplishments and an overall average childhood. Still, he could never let himself forget that he wasn’t a part of his family, not truly, not with his parents having their own biological children before and after they took him in. He was loved well enough, taken care of and cherished, but he always felt, just a little bit, like he was tacked onto an already happy picture, unable to bring anything good to the table. Irrelevant. Inconsequential.

Thirteen. His age when he became obsessed with the Sparrow Academy and their bravery. The number he was referred to in the brief legal proceedings regarding his international adoption. A number he held dear, a number he chose for himself when the members of the so-called Umbrella Academy made their appearance in 2019 after wreaking havoc in 1963, and he took it upon himself to stop them from ruining the present just like they had the past. 

Thirteen didn’t know he had powers when he made that decision. But when he found out, he became unstoppable.

The Sparrow Academy fell first. Thirteen hated it, but it had to be done. 

The Umbrella Academy, however, was a whole new beast.

If he was good at one thing, it was talking. Talking and taking. He climbed that corporate ladder by being charming, manipulative and ruthless. His hunger for power and for relevance was strong enough to make him one of the wealthiest people in the world, all before he even turned thirty, and wasn’t that a heartwarming story for someone with his humble beginnings?

Because it doesn’t matter that he has powers; he does come from humble beginnings. And his powers, his fucking powers, they only matter in relation to the powers of others. 

How is _that_ fair?

So he may have been born with powers but he wasn’t born _special_ \- he actually had to work his way into it. 

He was fascinated with the Sparrow Academy, his goal was to study them, to dissect and understand what made them actually special. Reginald was too easy to befriend, to fool into sharing more and more about the Academy members, but he was still very protective of his research. So Thirteen had to do his own.

It was only the second superpowered individual that his team has captured that made Thirteen discover and use his powers. The woman, Ava, could clone herself and almost managed to break free of his high security compound, fighting her way to Thirteen’s office. There, in his corner office, surrounded by clones of that woman, Thirteen’s self preservation instincts kicked in and he managed to cancel her powers. 

She was easy to kill then, and he took great pleasure in doing it himself, just like he did with the following three superpowered individuals that he found.

The world needed to be kept safe from those freaks and Thirteen, as evidenced by his powers, was the one chosen to do it.

It took him under a minute to render both the Umbrella and the Sparrow Academy members ordinary, and Thirteen regrets it a bit that he didn’t drag it out, maybe neutralise them one by one. Well. There were still enough of them on the loose, and he’d find them all.

  
  


xiii 

  
  


Diego isn’t there when Five wakes up. He’s nowhere in the house, but there’s a note on the kitchen table: _‘I’ll be back before noon. Diego’_

Five wants to scream.

It’s almost 11 AM when the car finally pulls in, and Diego opens the door. He doesn’t even get to close the door properly before Five is in his face, positively seething.

“Where the fuck were you.”

“Wow. Okay.” He’s taking off his gloves, looking more alive than he had in months. “First of all, that mouth of yours. I’m so glad you’re not in that uniform anymore, it was really difficult to take you seriously in shorts and long socks.” Five scoffs. “I must admit, I’m more of a fan of this whole skinny jeans thing you’ve got going on now; I did not see it coming but _damn.”_

Diego approaches him, and even though they’re pretty much the same height now, Five still feels dwarfed by Diego when he’s like that. The man seemed to prowl when he wanted to, and Five found it appealing enough for his brain to cross wires at the wrongest of moments. He allows Diego to come within inches of him, leaning in as he’s beginning to say something.

Five narrows his eyes. "Are you… are you trying to hit on me? I thought you were captured. Or dead. I didn't know where you were for hours, what the absolute _fuck_ were-" He doesn't get to finish his tirade, what with Diego's lips finding his lips, distracting him with a playful kiss.

"I prefer ‘flirting’ but okay. Second of all-” Diego pulls away, smiling like he’s done something. Something good. “I found the place.”

Five’s brain is back on the right track immediately, and he takes one step back.

“To face Thirteen?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“An abandoned warehouse about two hours’ drive away down South. It’s perfect, there’s plenty of vantage points, we can rig the place and safely get away.”

“How quickly can we do all that?”

“A couple of hours, tops.”

“Good. We just need a way to get Thirteen here.”

“We can’t let him know it’s us, though; we can’t risk him bringing the cavalry.”

Five looks around, starting to pace. “I need time to think.”

He sits down at the table, clearing everything in a messy file that he puts on the floor by his feet, and takes a deep breath. The facts were as such:

All of the Hargreeves were killed, save for Diego and himself.  
Lila was killed too.  
The Commission was dismantled, HQ having been blown up.  
So no archives, no Infinite Switchboard.  
Herb had a briefcase, and he was alive and on the run two weeks prior, but they had no way of contacting him.  
Thirteen almost certainly did not have a briefcase, or he would have had it with him at all times.  
According to files that Herb had left them, there were at least two other persons identified from the 43 children born on October 1st, 1989.  
The Commission HQ was placed out of time, so Thirteen could not have travelled back to get the files before Herb did.  
However, Thirteen could have identified them too, on his own, so they can’t send a message pretending to be one of them.

Five sighs. They are effectively alone. The only safe option - and he’s using the term ‘safe’ loosely - is to use themselves as bait.

“Are you sure you don’t want to use a gun?”

“Five, you know me.”

He does. He also knows that as soon as Diego’s knives take out the soldiers, Thirteen will know that their story is fake - if he doesn’t already suspect it. He could run away, they could lose him all over again. It means that they’d have to split up, and Five hates it.

They’d sent out a message pretending to call Herb to that warehouse, under the pretext that Diego was dead and Five was badly injured, hoping that this would mean Thirteen wasn’t threatened enough to bring his entire army. 

They’re still more than half an hour away from the meeting time, and everything was set up. Diego was peeking through one of the windows, though the road was empty and everything was eerily quiet. He breaks the silence, not looking at Five as he speaks.

“If we don't make it, I want you to know-

"Tell you what. If we _do_ make it out alive, I want you to fuck me."

Diego clenches his jaw, turning slowly to look at Five. 

"I want it. I want you."

Diego gulps and nods.

“Fuck, they’d better take their time; I need a moment.” 

Five, stupidly, asks “why” before seeing Diego shuffle his hips in an attempt to rearrange this pants to accommodate growing erection. 

“Oh. Really?”

“Really? You don’t know what it does to me to hear you talk like that.”

“I mean,” Five points to his crotch, “I can see. So I take that as a yes?”

“Fuck. Yes. Of course yes. If you still want it then, I mean. Yes.”

“And if we make it out alive.”

“That too.”

  
  


For the first time in a while, they’re lucky - a few minutes ahead of the scheduled time, only three SUVs approach the warehouse.

Five and Diego are ready.

The first explosions rigged around both entrances take out the first few soldiers, but they regroup quickly and soon Five and Diego find themselves having to resort to their weapons - Five with his trusted rifle, Diego with his knives. The smoke and the hail of bullets don’t make it easy for them, but they’re still lightning-quick and precise, dismantling Thirteen entire security team in minutes.

They’re quick enough that Thirteen doesn’t even have time to understand what’s happening before he’s the only one left standing, hands covering his ears while smoke is still raising around him. The sound of gunshots seems to hang around in the air as silence settles back around them.

Not for the first time since that asshole stole his powers, Five clenches his fists, starting forward in his instinctive move to blink across the room, catching himself only when he realises he’s just a step further instead of all the way in front of Thirteen, like he intended to. God damn, that coward took everything from him.

Thirteen doesn’t move a muscle while Five walks all the way to where he’s stood. He has a clear line of sight to notice Diego, as well as the knife he was casually flipping in his hand, so he does the only smart thing which is to sit still. 

Maybe he’ll beg for his life - the thought catches a slither of Five’s attention as he settles in front of the man - maybe they’ll get their powers back after he kills Thirteen so he can rewind time and kill the asshole again. He probably won’t do it, but in that brief instant it feels like the only way to even begin to make it right.

“Reginald always said-” Thirteen starts to say as he straightens up, but before he can finish the sentence a blade cuts the air right under his ear. His body stiffens in position, but he doesn’t stop talking. 

“Reginald always said that you’d be the biggest threat, that you were the reason he accepted to make peace with the Umbrella Academy in the first place. Your time manipulation powers were too great for any of his team’s attempts to bring you down. But I did it. I brought you down. I brought _all_ of you down. Who are you without your powers? You’re an old man trapped inside a teenager’s body, and that one? He’s just really good at throwing knives.” He turns to address Diego, a fake-innocent tone in his voice. “I’m sure that there are country fairs for the kind of tricks that you do. Maybe it's not enough to make a living, but I’m sure you can find a circus or two who’d be willing to take you on.”

Diego, much to Five’s surprise, does not retaliate. 

“What, momma’s boy can’t speak now that he’s ordinary?”

Diego sighs, looking outwardly calm though Five can sense his anger.

“You talk a big game for someone who’s gonna get killed in the next couple of minutes.”

When Thirteen, instead of answering, looks at his watch, Five gasps.

“Shit.”

He turns to Diego, already starting to run before his brain makes the conscious decision to do so. Before he can make it two steps away, he hears the approaching roll of tires cut the silence around the warehouse. Fuck; backup. They’ve grown sloppy.

There was still plenty of time to slit Thirteen’s throat and to run back to cover, where Diego still had a cache of knives and he’d left his rifle. But even if they did get there, they didn’t really stand a chance - by the sound of it, they were surrounded. In the distance, the chuf-chuf-chuf of helicopter blades cemented Five’s understanding that they would probably not make it out alive. 

But he’s still running for Diego - it’s instinct by now to gravitate to each other - and just as he reaches him, he can see the air distort behind him, settling into the familiar face of Herb. 

“Hold on!” Herb gives Five his hand, he takes it and grabs for Diego. In the last flash before the time distortion swallows them, Five can see Diego send one blade flying towards Thirteen.

“We really weren’t expecting you. We made that call to a random bar, we relayed our message to the most baffled bartender.”

Diego’s hunched a few steps over, hands on his knees and dry heaving, but Five’s long gotten used to the time sickness. 

Herb smiles, lifting his shoulders. 

“Oh. Well, I came in good faith. Good thing I showed up when I did, things seemed really tense in there.”

Diego groans, his hand resting instinctively on his nearly healed wound.

“I think I got him.” He straightens out, a small shiver still running through him as he speaks. “I _know_ I got him. I don’t miss.”

“When are we?”

“2003.” Herb walks to the door right at the end of the little driveway they’d all landed in. He’s pressing the doorbell, ignoring Five and Diego. The door opens almost as soon as Herb takes his finger off the buzzer, and a tall man in an ill-fitting grey shirt looks down at him.

Without missing a beat, Herb points to his briefcase.

“Would you be interested in purchasing a Bible?”

Five understands what’s going on; of course he does, but is itching to know the whole context. 

“No.” The man answers gruffly, trying to pass by Herb who’s placating him in the most polite of ways.

“You can help our parish; Our Lady of the, uh, Holy Water. We’re renovating the roof so any donation helps.”

The man looks at Herb in annoyance before finally stepping around him and walking to his van, ignoring him completely.

As he drives away, sparing one last look to the three strange men standing on his lawn, Herb walks back to Five and Diego.

“What was that?” Diego asks before Five can say anything.

“That was Mr Thompson, the newspaper guy. He’s now approximately thirty seconds late on his route - he’s going to run into a red light too, now - and this time, he won’t miss young Cirpian as he’s pulling out of a sidestreet on his bike. In--” Herb looks at his watch. “Three, two--”

A screech of rubber against the pavement makes Five and Diego turn to see where the sound was coming from. A commotion, followed quickly by some children’s screams and then a woman’s cries.

“Fuck.”

Five knows how this goes. He’s stepped on plenty well-chosen butterflies to know what has happened, as well as why it had to happen. Diego’s still working to understand.

“But he’s just a kid!”

It’s instinct; Diego knows very well that it had to be done, they all do. Five remembers his own first kills for the Commission and how they ate at him before he rationalized it all in neat little boxes.

“He was a kid now,” Five starts, “but we all know what he turns into.”

“Fuck.” Diego says again.

“So,” Herb looks at both of them in turn, “ when would you like me to drop you?”

Five takes a deep breath. There’s way too many unknowns to be able to make a decision on the spot.

“Do you have any insights on this timeline?”

“Just that, for the most part, your dynamic with the Sparrow Academy was unaffected by Thirteen’s absence. A few other minor details, but I don’t think they’ll touch you in any way that you’ll be able to tell.”

“What will you do?” Asks Diego, trying not to acknowledge the sound of sirens approaching in the distance.

“Well this is going to be a rough ride, but I managed to salvage enough employee files that I can pluck out of time sufficient people to set up a new organization to oversee and manage the space-time continuum. We’re starting from scratch, basically, but I think it’s achievable with the right people.”

“Good for you!” Diego goes for the convoluted handshake he had with Herb, but gives up when he sees Five’s eyes begin to roll in his head. He shakes Herb’s hand and leaves it at that.

“Wait, do we-”

Before he can finish his sentence, Five touches the both of them and blinks them all the way to the other end of the street. 

“Five, stop it, I’m seri-” He’s heaving again.

“Yes, we have all our powers. But I still prefer if Herb gives us a ride, I may have gotten rusty after all this time and I’d hate to get lost in time again.”

  
  


Seeing everyone again was like getting punched in the chest. Both him and Diego struggled to explain what had happened to their confused siblings, but managed to get most of it out once they decided that Five would be the only one to speak.

Diego hugged everyone - Klaus, the longest - but Five found that he couldn’t. He was overwhelmed, on edge, and it was probably the fact that every time he managed to save them, time seemed to self-correct and wipe them all out again. Maybe they weren’t really meant to be there after all. Maybe he tried to shape time into something that it wasn’t and couldn’t be - but he knew that he would never stop saving his siblings. If that was his singular purpose in life, he would happily accept it and fulfill it, over and over again. 

But he was tired. So, _so_ tired.

Diego was still talking to Klaus, and Five was taking the longest shower he’s taken in his entire life. Though the adrenaline had long worn off, he was still wired. 

Thirteen. All the death; all of it. It had happened but it was all gone now. One day Diego and him will stop thinking of it, and it will be as if it hadn’t happened. But until then-

He soaped himself again, letting his fingers run over his long legs, his torso, to feel the small wisps of hair that had started to grow above his lip. He’s had this body for three years, and it still felt eerily new. But, just like with Thirteen, one day he’ll stop thinking about it. Once day it will become his new normal.

Diego. 

Five knew what he’d said in that warehouse, before the madness began - and promptly ended.

_“I want you to fuck me.”_

He was ready. As he stepped out of the shower, Diego entered the room and closed the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> EDIT - part two basically wrote itself; bless the Writing Demon.
> 
> There might be a part two.  
> There may not be one after all. (Or maybe just not in _this_ timeline)
> 
> Who knows? Not me!


End file.
